Thursday, January 21, 2010

Billy G.: Twit

It's official: Bill Gates has his own Twitter account and is quickly becoming one of the system's most popular twits... er, "Tweeters" (Tomatoe, tomato), having amassed some 150,000 followers in the first 13 hours of his Twitter existence! He now has well over 275k.

Bill Gates' first tweet was "Hello world," a phrase familiar to all computer programmers. As some have noted, you can learn a lot about someone by whom the follow on Twitter... I mean, I guess you can - that's what other people are saying, anyway. Gates is following 40 accounts, including charities and Microsoft; actress, Ashley Tisdale; Ryan Seacrest; and Ashton Kutcher. I have no idea what that says about Bill Gates.

He also established a website/blog, The Gates Notes, dedicated to what he is learning, studying, thinking about, and generally involved in. This is actually kind of exciting, as the site opens with an introduction in which Gates notes he has access to brilliant minds in numerous fields and that, as he learns from them whatever it is in which he is interested, he plans to share that information with readers. Not only do I find that noble, it's a worthy and charitable cause to bring information to people who do not access to it and absolutely none of us have access to the resources Bill Gates does.

Finally, Gates reinstated his Facebook account, which had been deactivated some time back.